Brent Weeks - Beyond the Shadows

“Sister?” Kylar asked.

“There’s a king in Cenaria!” Sister Ariel said, making it an accusation.

“Is this a password?” Durzo asked.

“Glory to his name,” Kylar said. “Can we get out of the boat?”

“In Torras Bend, I called you arrogant. You said we’d discuss your arrogance when there was a king in Cenaria,” Sister Ariel said, unamused. “Was that your doing?”

“Me? Who am I to meddle with kings?” Kylar said, smirking a yes.

“What’s your name, young man? I seem to have forgotten. And who’s this?”

“Kyle Blackson. Nice to make your acquaintance again, Sister Airy Belle, right?” She gave him a glare that could curdle milk. “This is Dannic Bilsin, Uly’s dad.”

“Seven hells,” Sister Ariel said.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Durzo said.

Kylar got out of the boat and Sister Ariel stepped close to him and sniffed. She stepped back, confusion rising sharply in her eyes. She looked around the docks to see how far away the other Sisters were. “What have you done to yourself?”

With Durzo’s instruction, Kylar now appeared to be a man with a vast and untapped Talent. Otherwise, he smelled and looked like any man. As long as he didn’t use the ka’kari or his Talent, his guise would remain in place.

“I’m here to see my wife,” Kylar said.

“Vi’s studying, but I can have her brought to you after lunch.”

“I meant the wife I chose, not the one you did.” Kylar smiled thinly. Sister Ariel’s face drained.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” she said.

“Maybe I’m not the only one.”

“And you?” Sister Ariel asked Durzo. “Do you have demands that will cost lives, too?”

“I’m just here to see my daughter,” Durzo said.

The funeral came before the wedding. Dorian didn’t want the first thing he saw with his new bride to be insane women throwing themselves into a fire, shrieking as they burned to death. Nor did he want her to see the dozens of tiny bodies his men would throw on the fires first. He’d told Jenine that he’d purged the aethelings who’d been plotting against him, but he’d told her that he’d merely sent the younger ones away.

Well, hell counted as away, he supposed. Heaven certainly did.

Dorian, of course, had never seen the cremation of a Godking, but some of the older meisters had. There was a ritual to be observed, despite the fraud at the center of it: rarely had the body being cremated actually belonged to a Godking. But Garoth Ursuul’s pyre wouldn’t hold a substitute. Garoth had been a man deeply committed to evil, but he had been a great soul, too, a horror who could have been a wonder, and he was Dorian’s father.

Only meisters were allowed to attend the divine funeral, but that restriction meant little, for nearly every ranking official in the Khalidoran government was a meister. Generals, bureaucrats, the masters of the treasury, and even the chiefs of the kitchens stood in attendance. Tax collectors and soldiers watched according to their rank. Dorian uttered the meaningless words of praise to Khali, and they uttered their meaningless refrains of devotion. The fires were started and Dorian could read the vir of every meister making a weave to block the acrid stench of human fat burning. When the fires roared hottest, Dorian had the harem brought before him and claimed almost all of them. There were raised eyebrows, but nothing more. A Godking was expected to be voracious. The eight wives and concubines who’d chosen death were brought forward, and that was regarded as a small, but adequate nod to tradition. The women had been provided with wine laced liberally with poppy, and six of them had indulged freely. Two were sober. All seemed content with their madness, not shrinking back even as the eunuchs lifted them to heave them into the fire.

The shrieking was awful, but mercifully brief. It was considered a greater sacrifice to Khali if their suffering were extended, but Dorian was already giving Khali more than her due. He should have forbidden the women to join Garoth. But if he had forced them to live and they truly had loved Garoth, such women might have become a poison.

Or they might have transferred their slavish devotion to me, the way a good dog finds a new master after its old master dies. Dorian watched their bodies sizzle, and pushed the thought away.

He nodded to the Vürdmeisters tending the fire and the blaze leapt higher, consuming the flesh and even the bones to ash. In minutes, it was done.

Dorian lifted his hand to gesture that the wedding was to begin. It would be a simple affair, though lavish by Khalidoran standards. Godkings never wed. When commoners did, a man simply said, “I take this woman to wife.” From the woman, only a lack of explicit protest was required. Dorian planned something grander for Jenine but not too foreign for his meisters to stomach. But with his hand still raised, he paused. The moment had taken the eerie lines of prophecy. Dorian felt a sick chill and readied the vir in case there was another assassination attempt. Hopper was whispering to a page, who strode respectfully to Dorian’s side. Dorian was looking at his grand white robes, at the assembled faces. He’d seen this moment in a prophecy, why couldn’t he remember?

He inclined his head to the page.

“Your Holiness, Hopper wishes you to be informed that a spy has returned from Cenaria. He reports that a man named Logan Gyre has been named king.”

The world stopped. Jenine’s husband was alive. Dorian felt as if he were outside his body, re-entering the madness he thought he’d left behind with his prophetic gift.

How dare you, God? What do you want from me? To tell her that he lives? I’ve given my soul for this! For You. I am become a monster so I can redeem these people. Don’t You care about me? Don’t You care about this damned country?

If You did, You would have saved these wretches Yourself. I did not seek these chains of office. I did not seek the Talent You gave me. I only asked for one thing: this woman. You made me with this yearning too deep for words, and You would have me sacrifice it at the moment the honey touches my lips?

I have not forgotten you. I know the plans I have for you.

Remembering me means nothing if You won’t act for me. I have not betrayed You, You betray me. Non takuulam. I shall not serve. You and I are finished.

Godking Wanhope became aware of the stares of his meisters. He smiled and completed the gesture to Hopper. “Let our wedding commence,” the god said.

A simple lunch was delivered to Durzo’s room and Kylar and Durzo ate together in silence. “Guess you should head to your room, huh?” Durzo said. “They should be here any time.” He cleared his throat, reaching for a garlic pouch he no longer carried.

“I’d give anything to see you meet your girl,” Kylar said.

“I’d give anything to see you meet yours,” Durzo said.

Kylar swallowed, realizing he was pacing.

“You can feel her?” Durzo asked.

“Three floors up, heading down. Almost as nervous as I am.”

“I knew there was a reason I was never stupid enough to get ringed,” Durzo said.

“Do you have any idea how Uly’s going to react when she sees you?” Kylar asked.

Durzo shook his head.

“Then maybe you should shut your face.”

“Ah, wook, wittle Kylie is all gwowed up. He mad at his massah.”

In a flash, Kylar was on the verge of punching Durzo’s face. Then he laughed. “Unbelievable, huh? Guess I’ll go over to my room. Good luck.”

Durzo patted his back as he walked out of the room. It was an oddly intimate gesture, but Kylar said nothing to draw Durzo’s attention to it.